Enterprising States: The Public Management of Welfare-to-Work
Cambridge University Press, 7/12/2001
EAN 9780521000529, ISBN10: 0521000521
Paperback, 232 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm
Language: English
This book, first published in 2001, explores two shifts in the paradigms of governance in Western bureaucracies. They are the widespread use of privatisation, private firms and market methods to run core public services, and the conscious attempt to transform the role of citizenship from ideals of entitlement and security to notions of mutual obligation, selectivity and risk. Considine examines the most important service of the modern welfare state - unemployment assistance - to explain and theorise the nature of these radical changes. He undertakes research in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, four countries which have been among the boldest reformers within the OECD, yet each adopting different models. Each case is a break from the standards of responsible democracy and legal-rational bureaucracy, with at least one government opting for a commercial paradigm based on targets and economic incentives and another opting for a model based on network governance, co-production and trust.
1. Enterprising the state
2. Governance in fours
3. The United Kingdom
managing by numbers
4. New Zealand
two steps forward
5. The Netherlands
the part-time miracle
6. Australia
governance by competition
7. Taking the measure of the 'new governance'
8. Conclusion
de-coupling, contracting and self-enterprise.